Paul Among the People
It’s easy to forget that the Bible is a historical document. Thankfully, Sarah Ruden is all too aware of that fact and what she does with that knowledge opens up a fantastic perspective on Paul’s writings.
She takes some of his more controversial writings and puts them back into the context where they came from, allowing us to see that Paul was revolutionary—oftentimes in the opposite ways that people think so today.
His arguments for equality and love were so far ahead of the culture that they didn’t make sense. This book provides a great reminder that Jesus didn’t come to give us nice platitudes. He completely changed the way we look at all our relationships—with each other and with God.
The only downside of this book is also what makes it great. The Greco-Roman culture Ruden dives into is beyond depraved. And where two or three examples would’ve worked, she gives you ten. At multiple places, I felt sick to my stomach thinking about the practices that used to be a regular part of society.
If nothing else, this book is a great reminder of how far we’ve come—and how easy it is to take words and twist them to mean whatever we want. While culture has changed dramatically over the past 2,000 years (duh), our propensity to argue against the truth that stands in contrast to the world around us hasn’t changed at all.
Paul was a great man, writer, and evangelist. His words, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are still revolutionary. But we do ourselves a disservice when we pull them out of history and plant them in modernity. He wrote to specific people, at a specific time, in specific places.
When we remember that, his words only grow stronger, and the expectation on the Christian to practice self-sacrificial, radical love only grows greater.
Favorite Quote
A slave was, in Greek or Roman eyes, absolutely limited as to the consideration anyone (even a god) could show for him. Even if freed, he would always be treated as a social, civic, and spiritual inferior. A runaway had no right to any consideration at all. Deploying Christian ideas against Greco-Roman culture, Paul joyfully mocks the notion that any person placing himself in the hands of God can be limited or degraded in any way that matters. The letter must represent the most fun anyone ever had writing while incarcerated. The letter to Philemon may be the most explicit demonstration of how, more than anyone else, Paul created the Western individual human being, unconditionally precious to God and therefore entitled to the consideration of other human beings.